Listen
by MadameFanzel
Summary: "I've learned to watch her a little more carefully. Slowly but surely, I've learned how Maureen talks to people." ... Mojo. Oneshot, but a sequel is possible. Rated T, but not terribly high. No more optimistic than anything else I write. XD Enjoy, and please R&R! **Trigger warning for cutting.** Sequel possible but by no means promised. Inspiration and suggestions needed!


[Author's Note: I feel like all my stuff sounds essentially the same… But what can I say? I write what feels right. And this is the kind of stuff that happens. So, I hope you enjoy! And I hope you find something new and interesting in it and don't feel like I'm just beating the same old plot concepts to death. However you feel about it, let me know! I appreciate reviews more than you'll ever know!]

Listen

The first thing I do when I wake up is look at the clock. 2:07 AM. My next move is the necessary one: addressing the reason I awoke.

For a few minutes, I don't let on that I'm awake. It's never easy to get Maureen talking when she's upset: according to Collins, after one particularly nasty 'Mojo' (to use our friends' term) breakup, no one could get a word out of her for six days straight. Her record with me is four-and-a-half. So, when the opportunity presents itself, it's usually best to just kind of listen in on her. A lot of times you can catch some little word that will give you a hint as to what the problem is. If, of course, you don't already know; and this time I don't.

As I watch and listen to her, my mind wanders to Mark; as it often does when I see Maureen upset like this. In part, I blame him for this. Maureen naturally closes herself off when it comes to anything really significant. It takes a lot of time, patience, support, proving yourself, and encouragement that can start to feel like outright begging before you can get even the tiniest shred of information out of her. And that's just her nature. I know for a fact that she's gotten worse because of him.

Mark spent way too much time and energy on things other than Maureen, given that she was his girlfriend. In all that time he spent putting Roger as his priority above Maureen, he never stopped to realize that she might need him just as much- if not more. He just never gave her the opportunity to trust him or come to him for help. He had wanted immediate gratification when they started dating, but that's not who Maureen is: she's slow to trust. She needs to be able to open up a little bit at a time- when she's ready. And when she realized in the first few months of their relationship that he didn't like that, she closed herself off completely. When it comes down to it, I blame Mark for reinforcing an already dangerous habit.

Within a few months of when Maureen and I first started dating, I recognized that there was something a little bit… 'off' about her. I had to think about it for a couple of days before I realized that that something was the fact that she had never once talked to me about anything she described as being a problem. Of course, when I asked her about it, she just beat around the bush and said something about how all of her problems just disappeared when she was with me. Yeah, right.

Obviously, I never fell for that line, but I couldn't come close to imagining the significance of the problem until a cold, rainy September day last year when I came home from work a few hours early. As I entered the apartment, Maureen and I nearly ran into each other as she made her way from the kitchen (where I later found a knife with a bloody tip sitting in the sink) to the bathroom (where I assume, or at the very least hope, she was planning to make use of some bandages). At any rate, when we found ourselves face-to-face, Maureen froze like a deer in headlights. My eyes flitted to the limp, bloodied arm she was cradling with her uninjured hand and arm before locking with hers. We stood and stared at each other in complete silence and stillness for almost a full minute before I took a cautious step toward her. It did no good. Maureen darted away from me and back into the kitchen. I followed a few steps behind and knelt next to her, about a foot away; she had curled into a tiny ball in the corner of the kitchen, and she was trembling and had tears streaming down her face.

Above all else, the one thing I've never been able to get over about that experience is Maureen's obvious terror. For three days after that, she would barely leave our bedroom and refused any and all physical contact with me. The only words she said in those long days were 'I'm sorry'.

Since then, I've learned to watch her a little more carefully. Slowly but surely, I've learned how Maureen talks to people: losing her appetite or flat-out denying herself food means either 'I feel insecure' or 'I feel anxious'. Clinging to me or crying more than normal means 'I feel alone'. Cutting either means 'I feel angry' or 'I feel helpless'. Forced vomiting means 'I feel guilty'. Hiding herself away in our bedroom means 'I feel scared'. And that's only the tip of the iceberg.

So, as I lie here watching her, I wonder what might be going on this time. I think back over the past few days and can't seem to come up with anything out of the ordinary. Whatever I can coax out of her is sure to be coming from left field. Maureen is starting to say something, and after a minute I finally make out the muffled words: she's just repeating 'I'm sorry' over and over again.

Enough is enough. I sit up, but slowly, not wanting to surprise and scare her. Maureen, who is sitting with her knees pulled up to her chest, face buried in her arms on top, dark hair falling like a curtain to conceal her further, doesn't notice me at all. She just continues to slowly and gently rock front to back and cry harder than she has in a long time. That I know of, at least. She shrieks a little bit when she feels my hand on her back, but I wrap my arms around her before she can pull away. I press a tender kiss to her hairline, which seems to convince her to stop fighting to get away from me.

I don't ask her to talk to me. I don't ask anything of her. I just hold her on my lap, rubbing her back and rocking her back and forth. After maybe fifteen minutes, I feel two trembling arms snake around my waist and then cling as if her life depended on it. Maureen nestles her face into the spot where my neck meets my shoulder and softly kisses my collarbone before slowly but surely crying herself back to sleep in my arms.


End file.
